Some 30 people jump out of truck near Maastricht

A group of around 30 people jumped out of a truck on the A2 highway near Gronsveld in Limburg on Thursday morning. They then fled on foot into the Maastricht neighborhoods, the police said.

The people jumped out of the truck at around 8:45 a.m. The group consists of adults and children, a police spokesperson said to NU.nl. A number of them are barefoot. At this stage the police assume the people are undocumented migrants, according to the newspaper. "In any case, they don't seem to come from the Netherlands", the police spokesperson said.

The police and Koninklijke Marechaussee, a policing force that works as part of the Dutch military and is responsible for border security, launched a search for the people and caught up with 11 of them. They were taken to a police station for questioning. At around noon the authorities stopped actively searching for the rest of the group.

The truck driver was stopped at Houthem. He was also taken to a police station for questioning. The police did not say anything about his identity, but did say the truck came from Cyprus.